‘They want to ask you a few questions.’ Dartford was deliberately attempting to insinuate himself into the room. ‘I’ll hang around, if you like.’
‘That’s all right, thank you, Mr Dartford.’ Chubb answered the question for her. ‘We’ll call you if we need you.’
‘I really don’t think I ought to leave Frances on her own.’
‘We won’t keep her very long.’
‘It’s all right, Jack.’ Frances Pye settled back onto the pile of cushions that had been heaped up behind her. She turned to the three unwanted visitors. ‘I suppose we ought to get this over with.’
There was a brief moment of awkwardness as Dartford tried to work out what to do next and even Fraser could see what was going through his mind. He wanted to tell her what he had said about the London visit. He wanted to make sure that her account tallied with his. But there was no way Pünd was going to allow that to happen. Separate the suspects. Set them against each other. That was how he worked.
Dartford left. Chubb closed the door and Fraser drew up three chairs. There was plenty of furniture in the bedroom, which was large, with tumbling curtains, thick carpets, fitted wardrobes and an antique dressing table whose bowed legs seemed barely up to the weight of all the bottles, boxes, bowls and brushes piled up on the surface. Fraser, who liked to read Charles Dickens, thought at once of Miss Havisham in Great Expectations. The whole room was chintzy, slightly Victorian. All that was missing was the cobwebs.
Pünd sat down. ‘I’m afraid I have to ask you some questions about your husband,’ he began.
‘I quite understand. It’s a ghastly business. Who would so such a thing? Please go ahead.’
‘You might prefer to ask your son to leave.’
‘But I want to stay!’ Freddy protested. There was a certain arrogance in his voice, all the more inappropriate as it hadn’t yet broken. ‘I’ve never met a real detective.’ He stared insolently at Pünd. ‘How come you’ve got a foreign name? Do you work for Scotland Yard?’
‘Don’t be rude, Freddy,’ his mother said. ‘You can stay – but only if you don’t interrupt.’ Her eyes flickered over to Pünd. ‘Do begin!’
Pünd took off his glasses, polished them, put them on again. Fraser guessed that he would be uncomfortable talking in front of the boy. Pünd was never good with children, particularly English ones who had grown up in the belief that he was still the enemy. ‘Very well. May I ask, first, if you were aware of your husband having received any threats in recent weeks?’
‘Threats?’
‘Had he received any letters or telephone calls that might have suggested his life was in danger?’
There was a large, white telephone on the bedside table, next to the ice bucket. Frances glanced at it before answering. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Why would he have?’
‘There was, I believe, a property with which he was involved. The new development …’
‘Oh! You mean Dingle Dell!’ She muttered the name contemptuously. ‘Well, I don’t know about that. There were bound to be a few raised temperatures in the village. People around here are very narrow-minded and Magnus was expecting a few protests. But death threats? I hardly think so.’
‘We found a note on your husband’s desk,’ Chubb cut in. ‘It was unsigned, typewritten and we have every reason to believe that whoever wrote it was very angry indeed.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘The letter made a very specific threat, Lady Pye. There’s also the weapon that we found, the service revolver in his desk.’
‘Well, I know nothing about that. The gun was usually in the safe. And Magnus didn’t mention any threatening letter to me.’
‘May I ask, Lady Pye …’ Pünd sounded apologetic. ‘What were your movements in London yesterday? I do not wish to intrude,’ he continued, hurriedly, ‘but it is necessary for us to establish the whereabouts of everyone who is involved.’
‘Do you think Mummy’s involved?’ Freddy asked, eagerly. ‘Do you think she did it?’
‘Freddy, be quiet!’ Frances Pye glanced at her son disdainfully, then turned her eyes back to Pünd. ‘It is an intrusion,’ she said. ‘And I’ve already told the Detective Inspector exactly what I was doing, but if you must know, I had lunch at Carlotta’s with Jack Dartford. It was quite a long lunch. We were talking business. I don’t really understand anything about money and Jack is terribly helpful.’
‘What time did you leave London?’
‘I was on the seven-forty train.’ She paused, perhaps realising that there was a lengthy interval to be explained. ‘I went shopping after lunch. I didn’t buy anything but I strolled down Bond Street and into Fortnum & Mason.’
‘It is quite pleasant to kill time in London,’ Pünd agreed. ‘Did you perhaps look into an art gallery?’
‘No. Not this time. There was something on at the Courtauld, I think, but I wasn’t really in the mood.’
So Dartford had been lying. Even James Fraser picked up on the obvious discrepancy between the two accounts of the afternoon but before either of them could remark upon it, the telephone rang – not in the bedroom but downstairs. Lady Pye glanced briefly at the handset on the table beside her and frowned. ‘Would you go and answer that please, Freddy?’ she asked. ‘Whoever it is, tell than I’m resting and don’t want to be disturbed.’
‘What if it’s for Daddy?’
‘Just tell them we’re not taking any calls. There’s a good boy.’
‘All right.’ Freddy was a little annoyed to be dismissed from the room. He slouched off the chair and out of the door. The three of them listened to the ringing as it echoed up from downstairs. After less than a minute, it stopped.
‘The phone’s broken up here,’ Frances Pye explained. ‘This is an old house and there’s always something going wrong. At the moment it’s the phones. Last month it was the electrics. We also have woodwork and dry rot. People may complain about Dingle Dell but at least the new houses will be modern and efficient. You have no idea what it’s like living in an ancient pile.’
It occurred to Fraser that she had adroitly changed the subject, moving away from what she had – or had not – been doing in London. But Pünd did not seem too concerned. ‘What time did you return to Pye Hall on the night of your husband’s murder?’ he asked.
‘Well, let me see. The train would have got in about half past eight. It was very slow. I’d left my car at Bath station and by the time I’d driven over here, it must have been about nine twenty.’ She paused. ‘A car drove out just as I arrived.’